‘Amazing part of this’: All OK in Colorado midair collision
By Patty Nieberg
DENVER — The pilot of an airplane that collided with another midair near Denver requested emergency landing for engine failure, not knowing that his plane was nearly ripped in half, according to air traffic control audio.
Miraculously, both planes landed and no one was hurt, officials said.
The planes were getting ready to land at a small regional airport in a Denver suburb Wednesday when they collided, according to the National Transportation Safety Board and South Metro Fire Rescue.
The pilot that requested emergency landing was the only person aboard a twin-engine Fairchild Metroliner that landed at Centennial Airport despite major damage to its tail section. The plane is owned by a Colorado-based Key Lime Air, which operates cargo aircraft.
“Looks like the right engine failed so I’m gonna continue my landing here,” the pilot said in an audio clip with air traffic control.
The second plane, a single-engine 2016 Cirrus SR22, was rented by Independence Aviation, the company said in a statement. Its pilot successfully deployed an airframe parachute system designed by Cirrus Aircraft to slow the craft’s descent after a collision.
The Cirrus plane had a pilot and one passenger on board when the pilot deployed a red-and-white parachute and drifted down to a safe landing in a field near homes in Cherry Creek State Park, Arapahoe County sheriff ’s Deputy John Bartmann said.
“Every one of these pilots needs to go buy a lottery ticket right now,” Bartmann said. “I don’t remember anything like this — especially everybody walking away. I mean that’s the amazing part of this.”
The National Transportation Safety Board has four people investigating the accident, the federal agency said.
The Independence-operated Cirrus had departed Centennial on Wednesday morning, flew northward near Fort Collins and was returning to Centennial when the collision occurred. The Key Lime Air cargo flight took off from Salida, a city more than 100 miles southwest of Denver, and landed at Centennial.
Shelly Whitehead told KCNC-TV that she was in her kitchen when she heard a bang that sounded like a firecracker. She ran out onto her patio and saw the plane that deployed the parachute coming down in the field behind her house.
“I thought, ‘Is it somebody just jumping out of a plane?’ And then I realized the parachute was attached to a plane,” she said. “I thought for sure they weren’t going to make it out of there.”
Both Key Lime Air, a passenger and cargo charter company, and Independence Aviation, a flight school and aircraft rental firm that owns the Cirrus airplane, are based outside Centennial Airport, one of the busiest general aviation airports in Colorado.
“At this time, we are allowing the NTSB and FAA to conduct their investigation,” said a statement issued by Derek Severns of the Cirrus Platinum Training Center, a pilot training center.